Skip to main content
Menu

Main navigation

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
    LOADING...
  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit
    LOADING...
  • Publications
    • Studies
    • Commentary
    • Books
    • Reviews and Journals
    • Public Filings
    LOADING...
  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
    • Meet the Development Team

Issues

  • Constitution and Law
    • Constitutional Law
    • Criminal Justice
    • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Economics
    • Banking and Finance
    • Monetary Policy
    • Regulation
    • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Politics and Society
    • Education
    • Government and Politics
    • Health Care
    • Poverty and Social Welfare
    • Technology and Privacy
  • International
    • Defense and Foreign Policy
    • Global Freedom
    • Immigration
    • Trade Policy
Live Now

Cato at Liberty


  • Blog Home
  • RSS

Email Signup

Sign up to have blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!

Topics
  • Banking and Finance
  • Constitutional Law
  • Criminal Justice
  • Defense and Foreign Policy
  • Education
  • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Global Freedom
  • Government and Politics
  • Health Care
  • Immigration
  • Monetary Policy
  • Poverty and Social Welfare
  • Regulation
  • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Technology and Privacy
  • Trade Policy
Archives
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • Show More
June 29, 2011 10:16AM

Interstate Compacts and Do‐​It‐​Yourself Federalism

By Ilya Shapiro

SHARE

With the federal government’s growing assertion of power over the states — Obamacare is just the highest‐​profile example — state legislators regularly contact me for advice on how to push back while remaining constitutionally faithful. What can they do in areas like health care, immigration, drug decriminalization, and firearm regulation?


One innovative solution is interstate compacts: states can actually create binding federal law by joining together in a sort of multi‐​state contract. Typically they need Congress’s (but not the president’s) consent, but the Supreme Court has held that when the compacts don’t implicate challenges to federal power, they don’t even need that.


For example, Texas is now considering joining a Medicaid/​Medicare compact established by Georgia and Oklahoma. Many states are considering a Health Care Freedom Act compact, which use preexisting congressional consent for criminal‐​justice‐​cooperation compacts to mutually enforce state laws prohibiting the forced purchase of health insurance.


I discussed these innovative policy solutions — on which the law is untested — in a recent podcast. More broadly, however, there are plenty of things states (and of course their citizens!) ought to be considering if they want to reestablish the dual — actually tripartite, adding individuals — sovereignty at the heart of Constitution’s structural protections of liberty. (For more on that point, see part IV of Cato’s most recent Obamacare brief and part III of Justice Kennedy’s opinion in Bond v. United States.)


To that end, our friends at the Goldwater Institute recently released a major new report called “Federalism‐​Do‐​It‐​Yourself: 10 Ways for States to Check and Balance Washington.” The report outlines 10 legal tools that states can use to stand up to federal overreach, without resorting to so‐​called nullification (states can’t simply declare federal law void). The report includes a number of examples of how these tools have been used in isolated cases and recommends that states embrace them in a clear strategy to start holding the federal government to its constitutional role. From Goldwater’s press release, some of the tools include:

Reinvigorate the Reserved Powers of the States


Remember the REAL ID Act, the federal government’s attempt to create a national identification card through state driver’s licenses? REAL ID never was carried out because 14 states refused to comply. The Supreme Court has ruled the 10th Amendment prevents the federal government from “commandeering” or forcing state officials to implement federal policies. In “Federalism DIY,” author Nick Dranias writes there are many other areas where the federal government has fooled states into helping to carry out federal mandates when they don’t have to.


Strategic Legislation Plus Litigation


The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that states can grant more freedom and civil rights to their residents than what’s protected in the Constitution. And states can use this power to thwart federal efforts to impose new mandates on people. For example, 28 states are challenging President Obama’s health care law in two lawsuits out of Virginia and Florida. Both lawsuits won the first round before U.S. district judges and now are on appeal. Both judges ruled the states could challenge the federal law only because many states have adopted the Health Care Freedom Act, which protects a person’s right to choose his own doctors and not buy government‐​controlled health insurance. To date, no lawsuit against Obamacare without a state government as a plaintiff has a single victory.


Coordination with Local Governments


Laws creating many federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management, include a standard but little‐​known provision requiring these agencies to “coordinate” proposed new rules with local governments. This means the agency must sit down with a local government and honestly attempt to craft a rule that doesn’t conflict with existing local policies. If the federal agency fails to do so, a court can block the new rule. Three counties in Utah used the right to coordination to stop the BLM from releasing diseased wild horses onto public ranch lands.

There’s a lot of good stuff in there, so kudos to Nick Dranias and Goldwater for creating this federalism toolkit.

Related Tags
General, Constitutional Law, Political Philosophy, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies

Stay Connected to Cato

Sign up for the newsletter to receive periodic updates on Cato research, events, and publications.

View All Newsletters

1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001-5403
202-842-0200
Contact Us
Privacy

Footer 1

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
  • Podcasts

Footer 2

  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit

Footer 3

  • Publications
    • Books
    • Cato Journal
    • Regulation
    • Cato Policy Report
    • Cato Supreme Court Review
    • Cato’s Letter
    • Human Freedom Index
    • Economic Freedom of the World
    • Cato Handbook for Policymakers

Footer 4

  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
Also from Cato Institute:
Libertarianism.org
|
Humanprogress.org
|
Downsizinggovernment.org